KVR Audio

Nick Hamilton · Post by **Nick Hamilton** » Fri May 24, 2013 10:50 am

noiseprovesnothing wrote:I would have bought at $99 had adding and removing a plugin not consistently crashed Ableton Live. The plugins themselves sounded great.

We did get some reports of this with Live Version 8.2.4, there was a problem scanning for the VST plug-in folder on PCs.

A big folder was accidentally chosen (e.g. 'C:\') as the 'VST Plug-In Custom Folder'. These folders contain files that are interpreted as third-party plugins.

The Solution we found on the Ableton support pages was:

Hold the [ALT] key during the restart of Live → plug-in scanning will be skipped
Go to the 'File/Folder' tab in the Live Preferences
Choose a suitable 'VST Plug-In Custom Folder' (e.g. dedicated folder named VST plugins)
Restart Live → Live should rescan your plug-ins and start

That solved it for most cases.

Might want to try it again to give P&M a second chance.

If you were using the AU version on a Mac, I would suggest trying out the VST versions as they cause less problems regarding overall stability.

Best Regards,

Nick

Nick Hamilton · Post by **Nick Hamilton** » Fri May 24, 2013 1:13 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote:When I heard about the deal I was first pretty cautious, basically I have all the effects I'll ever need already, but I downloaded the demo and was positively surprised:

For me, these effects are a kind of VST-Lego - in the best sense.

Instead of uber-effects with dozens of parameters, it's little bricks of usually good sounding tools that I can click together and mix and match until something interesting comes out in a kind of modular manner. Processing demand is low enough to allow me to have 10 of them on a track without problems (6 core i7 here).
Somehow these plugins inspire me to try out stuff and play with them more than some of the much deeper ones I have.

For instance, I started with the Vinylizer to create some noise, added a Rotator, an American Tweed, a Granulize and an Octaplexer and ended up with a very roomy, lively sound of feed marching through mud which can be tuned to sound like a crackling campfire or very watery...

I personally like the guitar effects a lot. Somehow I was never too fond of the huge monolithic guitar suites like Guitar Rig, but with those small tools I can create a chain that is much more fun to tweak (for me anyway) and leads me to more surprising results. So while I still like Studio Ones "Ampire" most, for DAW independent use I created some very satisfying effect chains for Bass and Guitar with the P&M plugs.

The GUIs look good, are clear and mostly self explaining, the unified approach has a positive effect in that you don't need to find out what is what.

There are some plugins I'll hardly ever use, but about half to three quarters of them I really like.

My points of criticism would be:
- Some plugin parameters could use wider ranges, like most delays would be nice to be dialed in longer and some effects I'd like to turn more into the drastic.
- Some plugins could use more headroom. I got crackles sometimes when the signal went hotter from plugins that should be able to deal with that (like compressors and limiters).

But overall I'd recommend this collection to people who either start out or simply like the minimalistic Lego approach like me.
I personally wouldn't pay 399.- $ for them, but for 99.- it was a very nice deal IMO.

If this collection is further developed, updated and even expanded with new plugs, the deal is even more satisfying.

So a big thumbs up from me, although I may not represent the "normal" target audience with my more experimental sound-designish interests

Cheers,

Tom

Hello Tom,

Thanks for all your positiveness about the P&M bundle, we appreciate all your kind words.

Glad to hear you have had the time to explore the "sonic lego" by chaining the effects to get into the almost endless possibilities one can built by inserting them one after the other. And as they are pretty light in CPU usage you can go pretty far.

We have had other people who have asked for longer delay settings, we are looking into it.

Headroom is always something to watch when chaining signals, especially in the digital domain. One has to listen carefully as there is always the possibility of even single sample overloads that the meters sometimes don't show.

it is a big topic "gain-staging" that it is always better to stay on the safe side of, as one can hit the master faders with a huge load to handle that ends up killing the finer points in the mix. One keeps on adding level by compressing, EQing, maximising, etc to a point that progressively adding distortion.

A good trick is select all the faders and bring them down a couple of dBs and see listen to see if that changes the sound for the better, if it does then then one is working too "hot".

We are working on new plug-ins that have been recently requested by our clients as we have done for the recent updates, which are of course, free of charge.

Best Regards,

Nick

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Fri May 24, 2013 1:56 pm

Nick, thanks for your reply.

What I am talking about is that for instance in Ableton Live you can work with rather hot signals without problems and reduce them later on = lots of headroom.

Some plugins can deal with this, others don't have enough headroom to be used this way.

Especially in dynamics plugins I prefer those who deal graciously with this situation instead of starting to crackle. Since I often use effects as sound-design tools, the perfect sound may happen in just a certain area of signal strenght - if you turn it down it will lose something. This isn't possible if the plugin crackles in this case.

A good example is the combination of the Diversion Synth from Dmitry Sches followed by the free George Yohng's W1 Limiter. Diversion can go pretty wild volumewise if several filters are combined, but the W1 Limiter handles it perfectly. Sometimes I come up with sounds that sound 10 times better when first going out of Diversion pretty hot and then being limited by W1. And I may not be able to reach the same sound if I tame it down.

This may be my special use as opposed to the so called "correct" use of things, but I always look out for plugins that allow me that extra freedom.

So this is the reference point to what I wrote about above - for my use and taste, the headroom of the plugins is too low.
YMMV

Cheers,

Tom

Nick Hamilton · Post by **Nick Hamilton** » Fri May 24, 2013 2:25 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote:Nick, thanks for your reply.

What I am talking about is that for instance in Ableton Live you can work with rather hot signals without problems and reduce them later on = lots of headroom.

Some plugins can deal with this, others don't have enough headroom to be used this way.

Especially in dynamics plugins I prefer those who deal graciously with this situation instead of starting to crackle. Since I often use effects as sound-design tools, the perfect sound may happen in just a certain area of signal strenght - if you turn it down it will lose something. This isn't possible if the plugin crackles in this case.

A good example is the combination of the Diversion Synth from Dmitry Sches followed by the free George Yohng's W1 Limiter. Diversion can go pretty wild volumewise if several filters are combined, but the W1 Limiter handles it perfectly. Sometimes I come up with sounds that sound 10 times better when first going out of Diversion pretty hot and then being limited by W1. And I may not be able to reach the same sound if I tame it down.

This may be my special use as opposed to the so called "correct" use of things, but I always look out for plugins that allow me that extra freedom.

So this is the reference point to what I wrote about above - for my use and taste, the headroom of the plugins is too low.
YMMV

Cheers,

Tom

Hello Tom,

I hear where you are coming from, after all using effects is just that, "effecting" a sound to make it more than it was to begin with, I do it a lot myself.

My only point was rather unlike analog where distortion is a gradual thing, digital is unforgiving and gets "brittle" when pushed. So one has to be careful, that's all.

That said, rules are there to be broken.

It sounds like you would be interested in what GRM Tools can do in terms of resonance and just plain "sound-warping" , if you haven't tried them, you should check them out. They can get some very "wild" stuff going very quickly.

Best Regards,

Nick

Plugivery · Post by **Plugivery** » Tue May 28, 2013 9:07 am

Dear Friends,

We're listening to you !

During the very successful Group-Buy we ran in April, quite a few of you had great suggestions for the V.I.P. product range and also the overall price for our products once things got back to normal. We've also received tones of emails from customers asking us to extend the Group-Buy promo…

We weighed up all the opinions and so we started working on new products and we decided to lower the V.I.P. Bundle SRP Price (Suggested Retail Price) at $299 with a special MAP price at $249. We also adjusted all individual plug-ins at ONLY $49 (MAP $39).

We Believe this will allow even more users to enjoy our products at a permanently promoted price

Thank you all for the great testimonials and the amazing feedback !

Kind Regards - Peter

FeelingMachine · Post by **FeelingMachine** » Tue May 28, 2013 10:19 am

I was doing a shootout of all my itb distortion options and i was happy to find that Monster Boost, Distorted and Degradiator sound pretty good and really usable.

J4R1O · Post by **J4R1O** » Tue May 28, 2013 5:25 pm

How long it takes until I get a chance to download that free Plug & Mix -plugin? Clicked "Like" on Facebook hours ago, but still no e-mail.

I think my choice will be Clarisonix or Brightness. Any other suggestions?

Plugivery · Post by **Plugivery** » Thu May 30, 2013 10:03 am

J4R1O wrote:How long it takes until I get a chance to download that free Plug & Mix -plugin? Clicked "Like" on Facebook hours ago, but still no e-mail.

I think my choice will be Clarisonix or Brightness. Any other suggestions?

Hi,

It appears that you didn't complete the hole process on Facebook... Please contact our support team :
http://www.plugandmix.com/about/contact/

Both Clarisonix and Brightness are great ! Install the demos and see which one you might use the most...

Thanks - Peter

J4R1O · Post by **J4R1O** » Thu May 30, 2013 11:10 am

DontCrack wrote:It appears that you didn't complete the hole process on Facebook... Please contact our support team :
http://www.plugandmix.com/about/contact/

Both Clarisonix and Brightness are great ! Install the demos and see which one you might use the most...

Thanks - Peter

I completed the process but for some reason I never got that confirmation e-mail. I contacted support and everything is ok now.

Thanks!

BTW: My choice was Brightness.

I promise to try Clarisonix as soon as I get back home (next week).

Nick Hamilton · Post by **Nick Hamilton** » Thu May 30, 2013 3:08 pm

J4R1O wrote:
DontCrack wrote:It appears that you didn't complete the hole process on Facebook... Please contact our support team :
http://www.plugandmix.com/about/contact/

Both Clarisonix and Brightness are great ! Install the demos and see which one you might use the most...

Thanks - Peter
I completed the process but for some reason I never got that confirmation e-mail. I contacted support and everything is ok now.

Thanks!

BTW: My choice was Brightness. I promise to try Clarisonix as soon as I get back home (next week).

Hello J4R1O,

As I have mentioned to others on another threads, if you are getting frustrated by the problems that FaceBook has presented to a small group of people who wanted to get the free plug-in, just send us a message at:

http://www.plugandmix.com/about/contact/

And we will help you out to get the plug-in of your choice.

We just want people to try out the plug-ins and use them to help them do better mixes.

Best Regards,

Nick

cyphersuit · Post by **cyphersuit** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:51 am

just an fyi: plug & mix got updated and features 5 new effects now!

from their email:

• Lo-Fi : This plug-in takes Lo-Fi to the next level by combining Bit Depth, Decimator and Noise to produce hardcore redux distortion tones.

• Moogy Filter : This great sounding filter can be driven with it’s built in saturation for crunchy tones and it also has an envelope follower to give that extra bite.

• Multi-Tap Delay : Set your general rate with the big speed knob and then prepare yourself for Multi-tap madness as you can adjust the precise position and pan of all 5 delay taps.

• Tone Stack : Tone-Stack delivers the guitar amp tone you’ve been yearning for ever since you sold your amp on craigslist.

• Vowel Comb : This unconventional effect allows you to add vowel overtones to any source material causing your rhythms to come alive, your guitars to speak and your bass to growl like a beast.

Burillo · Post by **Burillo** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:55 am

nothing i'd like to see (e.g. a de-esser) but unexpected and interesting (at least from the description) newbies, good thing weekend is coming

kelvyn · Post by **kelvyn** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 12:25 pm

As a very happy VIP user I can say I find them really good for all kind of things... I also just saw a tutorial where Fab Dupont used some of the plugins to great effect.
It's a cool concept that covers a broad spectrum of audio manipulation tasks catering to all kinds of different FX requirements.

cyphersuit · Post by **cyphersuit** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 10:04 am

havent had time to download... can we preview the new gui somewhere?

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 11:01 am

Tried the new ones. Lo-Fi and Vowel Comb are really bad@$$.

Plug & Mix Opinions